Cases Like This
by pinkswallowsun
Summary: 'It's cases like this which cause you to come here when you finally make it through the front door at ridiculous-o'clock in the morning, to curl up at the end of her bed in the darkness of her room, simply watching her sleep.' Oneshot.


**Cases like this**

It's cases like this which cause you to stay up all night at the Lyell Centre, sorting through tox report after tox report and case file after case file, a mountain of medical journals and ancient books from Leo's office stacked across your desk, even though you know only too well that the answer cannot be found in any of them.

It's cases like this which make you wonder if the whole of humanity is bloody evil, ticking time bombs just waiting for the right catastrophe in our lives to set us off, to send us over the edge into the realm of despair and misery and criminal acts.

It's cases like this that make you wish you'd listened to your father's advice and never become a pathologist in the first place, taken a nice job as a surgeon and worked with patients of the living kind throughout your career.

And it's cases like this which cause you to come here when you finally make it through the front door at ridiculous-o'clock in the morning, to curl up on the end of her bed in the darkness of her room, simply watching her sleep, taking comfort in the fact that she's here, that she's breathing, that she's yours and she's so, so alive. Like tonight. Tonight is a hot July night and so she's kicked back the covers as far as they will go, she herself spread out in a starfish position across the bed and her hair pulled back into a messy bun, shaded an ebony black in the lurid room. You can't quite see her face, make out her features, but you can tell that she's content, peaceful, dreaming, and that's what matters.

Its cases like this which remind you just how many times you've almost lost her, and you shiver a little now, despite the humidity of the night, despite the stray bedclothes wrapped haphazardly around your side. Because you're not shivering at the cold, you're shivering at the thought of never seeing her again, at the thought of her turning up on one of the mortuary slabs to be cut open like the little girl you dealt with today. You've come close to losing her forever one time too many in the past few years and it scares you, big time. It's cases like this which cause you to have nightmares about it, which cause you to spend half the night sat up on the sofa beside the bedroom window, gazing out at the small white stars glowing against a velvet sky, marvelling at how they somehow manage to be both faint and bright at the same time. Stars are a lot like hope, you decided after one particularly hard case not too long ago, and you don't care how soppy that sounds. Hope is one of those precious few things in life which can be both faint and bright all at once, no matter how grave the circumstances. And love. Hope and love can see you through the darkest of times, you've come to realize over the last few years. Somehow it's all turned out OK for you, even though at times it didn't seem as if it ever could. And for that, for your now-perfect little family, you'll always be grateful.

But it's cases like this which remind you just how lucky you are, keep your feet firmly on the ground. You might have been lucky in the end, it might have all ended happily for you, for now at least, but there are so many others for whom things didn't turn out so well, so many others who will never be reunited with their loved ones, no matter how hard they wish for them to come home someday. You always thought that once you had someone to come home to you'd spend less time at the Lyell Centre, pull less near all-nighters, but over the last few years you've discovered that in fact, when it comes to the more horrific cases, the opposite is true. Sometimes you feel guilty that you've got a home to go back to, a family, a safe haven that you can return to when your shift ends, that you can shut the Lyell Centre door on all the horrors and come home to happiness and peace. The parents of the little girl whose post mortem you completed today can't do that; they'll never be able to do it in quite the same way ever again. A part of them is gone forever along with their daughter, and somehow you find yourself feeling guilty that you can still be happy when you come home at the end of the day. And so each time one of those cases comes in you'll go that extra mile, stay up half the night if you have to in your quest for justice, for the answer to the simplest of questions: how can people be so cruel to one another? But there is no answer, you know that only too well. You're not a psychologist, and sometimes you doubt that even they would be able to explain away all the evil in the world. No one can.

And so it's cases like this which make you appreciate the peaceful innocence you're able to come home to on these bad nights, when you've finally given up hope on finding an answer which doesn't exist and retreated home for the night. You'll sit here watching her sleep for a while longer, the steady rising and falling of her chest with each and every breath she takes which differentiates her from the little girl you worked on today, now lying all alone in the cold of the mortuary freezer. Does she really still have that innocence, after everything that's happened? You don't know. You'd like to think so. But then the more you think about it tonight, glancing at the clock on her bedside table and groaning silently as you realize it's already 3 in the morning, the more you realize that it doesn't matter either way. Whether she has somehow managed to retain that fresh air of innocence or not, she's still yours, and that's never going to change. And you're lucky to have her, you know that much. Lucky to have her, to have them both, unlike the poor mother of that little girl today, who will never be so fortunate again.

Your mind's running in circles now, and you know that you're overtired, that you should really be heading to bed yourself, getting some sleep. It's colder now than when you first sat down on the edge of the bed and she's starting to shiver slightly, so you untangle yourself from her duvet, moving to spread it over her. That's when you sense someone watching you from the doorway and you turn around, squinting in the gloom to make out the figure, even though you know exactly who it's going to be. Who else would be in your flat at this time of night? You press your finger to your lips as you make eye contact, telling him to keep quiet until you're finished, then proceed to tuck the sleeping figure beside you into bed, bending to kiss her forehead softly before turning and walking towards the figure in the doorway, pulling the bedroom door to behind you as you fall into his arms.

"Bad case?" Harry asks sympathetically, caressing your back in a gesture of comfort as you sigh, nodding your head in confirmation, your face buried in his chest.

"You could say that. Sorry, I…" you cut off, gesturing to the now-closed door behind you both. "I just had to check on her, I guess…"

"Nikki, you don't have to explain," Harry insists, his chin now resting on the crown of your head. "I know, I understand. Believe me, I know." You know he's done his fair share of this in the past, checking in on your daughter after the more horrific cases involving children which have spanned out well into the night; he knows the feeling just as well as you do. It's not that each of you doesn't trust the other to look after her- of course you do- you simply need to see for yourself that she's safe, that she's unharmed, and sometimes, as awful as it sounds, you have to reassure yourself that she's still breathing, that you haven't lost your child in the way that those parents you dealt with earlier in the day did. To some people it might sound strange, sadistic, disturbing, but to you and Harry, after everything the three of you have been through as a family, it's become routine on these difficult nights, part of the coping mechanism that allows you to do your job, day after day. And maybe that's alright.

"Did Josi go off OK?" you want to know as Harry steers you towards your own room, his hands resting delicately on your shoulders. You should be used to it now, you know that, but you still find it difficult to not be there for your daughter's bedtime, to tuck her in and read her a story and assure her you love her. Maybe it's because your own mother was rarely around to do it for you?

"Nikki, relax, she was fine, out like a light," Harry assures you as you reach your room, perching on the edge of the bed as you pull your pyjamas out from under the pillow. "That new gymnastics coach is fantastic, I tell you, I've never seen so many exhausted 7 year olds. No, I picked her up on time, managed to keep her awake long enough to learn her spellings, fed her, got her into bed… she was fine Niks, I promise. I _even_ remembered to rescue her school uniform from the bottom of her gym bag before it got completely and utterly creased, _and _I signed her homework diary!"

You have to smile, despite everything you've seen this evening that's unnerved you. Those are the two things which Harry always, always forgets to do when you're out for the evening, and yet it seems he'd finally cracked it. But the wave of happiness doesn't last for long, and as you cross to the wardrobe, hanging up your clothes, before heading back across the room and climbing into bed, pulling up the covers and snuggling close to your fiancé, your mood hits rock bottom once more.

"Hey," Harry says softly, his arm draped over your stomach. "You want to talk about it?" How he always manages to sense exactly what's wrong, even in the darkness when he can't read your facial expression, you don't know.

"She was just a child, Harry," you whisper, trying to keep the shake out of your voice. "7, Josi's age, abandoned in a ditch not far from her house. She'd been abused Harry, sexually abused, and you know how did it? The uncle. Why, Harry?" You're sobbing softly now, the emotions of the night suddenly becoming too much to hold in any longer. "When did humanity become so evil that we could do that to each other, to our own relatives?"

Harry just sighs, the tickling sensation of his breath on the back of your neck strangely comforting. "I don't know, Niks," he confesses, his voice fading to a blur as sleep begins to take you over; you hadn't realized quite how tired you were until now.

"I don't know. But Nikki, listen: some things in life just can't be explained, no matter how hard you try. And that's not a failure on your part, you know that, don't you? Your job is to examine the body and find out how it happened, to bring the killer to justice, not to predict what's going to happen and stop it. You did your best Nikki, I know you did. And that's all anyone could possible ask of you."

It's cases like this which remind you just how fortunate you are to have found Harry, to have someone to comfort you after these hellish cases in the way that he does. Because you are fortunate, you know that, and you'll never take his presence in your life for granted. You don't think it's possible to take anything for granted in terms of the people you love, not in this job, not after seeing so many families torn apart by death and destruction, like the little girl's family tonight. But Harry's right; it's not your fault, you couldn't have stopped it from happening, and feeling guilty for still having your own perfect little family, your own taste of happiness, isn't going to help in the slightest. It's cases like this which can break a person, and it's Harry Cunningham who gives you some perspective, stops it all becoming too much. And for that, for having him, you'll forever be grateful.

**I know this isn't fantastic; I've had it written for a while but I didn't publish it because I don't really like it, but I've got another fic I want to publish, which would make a total of 13 that I've published on here. And what with GCSE results looming, I've developed a bit of a phobia of the number 13. So I decided I was going to have to publish this to make it up to 14 :) So thank you for indulging, and if it wasn't too terrible then please let me know, it would really cheer me up! And I'm publishing another new fic at the same time which hopefully should be a bit better, so keep an eye out for that :)**

**Love Florencia xxx**


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